Justice Department sues NC over new voter law

McCrory: Suit a partisan attack by Obama adminstration

The Justice Department has sued the state of North Carolina for alleged racial discrimination over tough new voting rules.

The lawsuit was filed electronically in Greensboro Monday afternoon.

At a news conference in Washington Monday, Holder said "by restricting access and ease of voter participation, this new law would shrink, rather than expand, access" to voting.

North Carolina's new law cuts early voting by a week, ends same-day voter registration and includes a stringent photo ID requirement. It is among at least five Southern states adopting stricter voter ID and other election laws.

"Allowing limits on voting rights that disproportionately exclude minority voters would be inconsistent with our ideals as a nation," Holder said.

More than 70 percent of African-Americans who cast a ballot in North Carolina during the past two presidential elections voted early. Studies show minority voters are also more likely to lack a driver's license.

Gov. Pat McCrory said the federal complaint is an overreach and without merit. McCrory said he has hired private lawyers to help defend the new law from what he suggested was a partisan attack by President Barack Obama's Democratic administration.

The lawsuit against North Carolina is the latest effort by the Obama administration to counter a Supreme Court decision that struck down the most powerful part of the landmark Voting Rights Act and freed states, many of them in the South, from strict federal oversight of their elections.

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